Lost
by Auphanim
Summary: He never realized just how real his demons were, without the lights there to save him, and his guardian to stop them. The ghosts of his past, the ghosts that he made himself, and shackled to himself with handmade chains. [Character death]


Lost 

_**And maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both grow old...  
**_

He can hear the soft click of a light switch being flipped on, but nothing penetrates the darkness he tries in vain to stare through. It is unnerving, hearing the usually silent footsteps echoing across the room – a small sign that things are changing around here, as if there were any doubt in his mind. Changes don't have to be acknowledged right away, and nothing showed on his face as he turned soundlessly towards the approaching figure.

"Your eyesight has finally gone – I hope the last image you saw was pleasant," a disembodied voice says. It actually takes him a while to find a face to go with the cynical tone – Leader. There was probably a smirk on his face, too.

He refuses to say anything, turning back to how he had been sitting, looking (but not really) down to his folded hands, eyelids closing over dark, dark eyes. Soon enough, he hears the door close, and idly wonders if the lights were left on or off.

What was the last thing he saw? It seems like he can hardly remember anything now, ever seeing anything, ever feeling, hearing, tasting anything. All because of the lack of one sense? And even that isn't entirely, because when he has more than one pupil in each eye he faintly see blurs and shocks of chakra – the world teems with chakra, and it morphs into one solid mass with bright spots if he stares for too long.

He knows he's just lying to himself, now. Because he can feel the tremors in his form as his shot nerves tell him that he's in pain. And that's he not sitting, not standing, but lying, strapped down carefully. It feels like he might be sticking to the sheets under and over his body. His eyes are still open, aren't they?

It's hard to tell in the dark – seems like his lights are broken.

His eyes are closed, now, and he can see. Faint outlines, black shapes with glowing eyes and Cheshire grins, blades falling like drops of blood from their hands. That can't be right, that isn't right, but they don't leave when he opens his eyes this time.

Racing heart beat.

Erratic breathing.

Sweat.

Hallucinations?

And they don't stop, and he never realized just how real his demons were, without the lights there to save him, and his guardian to stop them. The ghosts of his past, the ghosts that he made himself, and shackled to himself with hand-made chains. And the worst one is yet to appear, with soft, soft lips and kind eyes, and arms willing to embrace.

He'll kill it again and again and it won't make a difference. And a new kind of demon is here now.

"You okay?" Of course, that damned blond was never one to take others into consideration. "Leader told me to check on you, yeah…"

Is he staring at the ceiling, still? Or at a wall. Maybe he's on his side. Or sitting up again.

"Jeez, stop staring, you can't even see anything," Deidara says, leading him back to the bed and sitting him down. "You need rest."

Is he gone now? It must have been minutes without a word. He feels like ripping out the eyes he fought so hard for, and tossing them to the ground, stepping on them until nothing is left but a bloody smear on the ground. They'll go perfectly with those damned roses.

Kisame. That's the last thing he really remembers seeing. Not a healthy, smiling Kisame. A grimy, dirty Kisame, face skinned raw by his own weapon, pushed and ground against his body. Limbs missing, charred areas of his body. Thousands of tiny, bleeding wounds soaking the ground underneath him.

Then what happened? The Sharingan, whirling, whirling until it was as fast as his pulse was now, and it made his eyes bleed and trapped the minds of those around him into the world of the kaleidoscope for eternity. Kisame included, if he hadn't been dead already.

"Itachi-san, you have nothing to worry about. I'm not gonna die."

He's startled for a moment, and means to sit up but only finds himself already sitting. Shisui that had said that, once, when he was much younger. His 'best friend' had ruffled his hand, and given him that smile he'd loved in his cousin and in his partner years later. And then he went off to fight, and came back in stitches, with parts of his skin gone.

He'd never told anyone, but Shisui had let him peek under the bandages that day.

Shisui was dead now, of course. He had made sure of that himself. And now what, he misses him? Misses Kisame? When did they become one and same, anyway? He stares and stares, and doesn't see anything but his past.

Suddenly being a genius isn't so great.

A normal man has enough troubles and hauntings on his own. Geniuses have it a bit rougher, with complex minds that they themselves don't even understand. And they lie awake at night, tossing and turning and overflowing with ideas, until they finally rest, to wake in the morning with light that chasing away the suffocating feelings.

What is a genius without light? A madman. Not that he hadn't been labeled that already.

"You're insane."

The first time he'd heard those words, they were spoken by a mask. How hilarious, he muses, that someone who wears a fox on their face would call him insane. He may have deserved it back then, licking the blood and gore off of his sword with a sickening grin.

He'd worn that same grin as he held onto Shisui's face and slammed his head into a rock over and over, licking at the blood and gore that had landed on his face. And still when he tossed him into the river, it only fading as he forged a suicide note.

It's true now, really true. He accepts this – there is nothing left for a man that can't tell the difference between sitting and standing and walking than to admit his faults. And this he does, rattling off a long list of mistakes and errors he's made all his life. Who doesn't keep count?

Sometime, someone comes in. He stares at the ceiling-wall-floor-sky-something and his lips are barely moving, wind barely passing through them with his endless list. Someone touches his face, and murmurs something comforting to him. Must be Tobi.

"…Itachi-san?"

He doesn't even pretend to care, just continues on and on, and wishes slightly that he could _fucking_ see his face. The footsteps return once more, heading away from him carefully.

"Did you know that I fell during a mission once?" he asks his visitor quietly. He pauses, but doesn't wait for a response. "As it turned out, because of that mistake a teammate ended up with a kunai sticking out of his throat."

There is silence for a while, broken only by the slight shuffling of feet and the swishing of clothing as Tobi searches for something to say.

"Oh… I'm…"

"I ripped it out of his throat to save myself from dying. He would've lived it I hadn't moved it. We had a medic nin."

"I'm sure you did-"

"Get out."

Tobi leaves, and he doesn't know why he did that. He's left all alone again, but the constant speaking on his part seems to help. Wonder where he is now, standing or sitting or sleeping. They're all interchangeable anymore, surprising how much he needed – needs – his eyes. Orochimaru may have been on to something with the Sharingan.

He wishes he had given it to him, all those years ago, so he could laugh and laugh from hell as Orochimaru looses his sight and mind.

Now that he realizes he was actually laughing out loud, he stops. Stops talking, stops staring, tries to stop thinking and breathing. Just stop.

It doesn't work. Just makes him worked up.

No one else comes, which is a slight surprise. No one preaches to him about god and such nonsense, no one warning him about how much it will cost to heal him. No one telling him that everything will be just fine.

That he'll live.

That Kisame is alive.

That he is alive.

In the last few minutes, he notes that his demons have been moving towards him again. They're touching him now, eliciting burning pain wherever they touch. It feels like his skin is being melted off of his body.

Maybe things are finally coming to an end. How pitiful, that he isn't even falling at the end of a jutsu or a kunai, but lying or whatever the fuck he's doing to death. Scratching at the wounds his family inflicts on him, soaking the sheets like he's soaked his hands and soul and the ground when Kisame left.

For some reason, he remembers a song now. He hated it when he first heard it, but now how does he feel about it?

Nothing.

There's nothing left to feel.

Nothing left.

Feel.

_**I don't know, I don't know, don't think so.**_

"Just throw his body on Kisame's, and burn them together – it doesn't matter anymore."

* * *

Unedited, just a quick writing. Sorry if it's hard to understand, though I think parts of it are supposed to be that way.

Lyrics by "Modest Mouse"


End file.
